Dallas Cowboys at Seattle Seahawks Picks and Prediction for Saturday, August 15, 2026
Lumen Field in Seattle hosts Saturday night's late preseason opener at 8:00 PM ET on NFL Network as the Dallas Cowboys visit the defending Super Bowl champion Seattle Seahawks in what is the most emotionally charged of all Week 1 preseason matchups. It will be over 185 days since the Seahawks won Super Bowl LX, and the team returns to Seattle for their only home preseason game of 2026. Starters aren't expected to play, but the exhibition game will be the first chance to see Cowboys rookies like Caleb Downs and Jaishawn Barham in action. Quarterbacks Joe Milton and Sam Howell will get the majority of playing time under center on Saturday, with each QB fighting to be Dak Prescott's backup this season. Read on to find out who takes the W in our Cowboys vs. Seahawks preseason prediction. Get our top NFL Predictions and increase your bankroll!
Seahawks: Super Bowl Champions, Lumen Field Erupting, Drew Lock the Key Weapon
Mike Macdonald is entering year three as the Seahawks head coach coming off Super Bowl LX, where Seattle beat the New England Patriots 29-13. His defense was the foundation of that championship team, and it's still largely intact. The first preseason game at Lumen Field since hoisting the Lombardi Trophy is the single most emotionally charged environment on Saturday's preseason slate — a stadium that was already one of the NFL's most hostile environments for visiting teams, now amplified by the collective celebration of a city that waited decades for its second Super Bowl championship.
Sam Darnold is the Seahawks' starting quarterback and will play limited snaps if any. Behind him, Mike Macdonald has Drew Lock — a veteran with actual NFL starting experience across stints in Denver, Seattle, and the New York Giants — and Jalen Milroe, a young quarterback with dynamic rushing ability who's been getting reps throughout training camp. That's a legitimate one-two backup punch that can move an offense in the second half of a preseason game. Lock's familiarity with the Seattle system from his previous stint with the franchise gives him a comfort level that converts directly into efficient preseason quarterbacking — the kind of veteran execution that produces field goals and scoring drives rather than the three-and-outs and turnovers that typically define backup-quarterback preseason football.
Even with starters sitting and second-string units doing the work, this is a franchise that runs its defense with discipline and pressure concepts that overwhelm unprepared backup quarterbacks. The Seahawks' defensive identity under Macdonald has been built on disguised coverage schemes and varied pressure packages that specifically target the pre-snap decision-making weaknesses that backup quarterbacks display most consistently. Rookie and backup quarterbacks visiting Lumen Field for the first time have historically struggled with the noise and pace. The Seahawks lead the all-time preseason series with the Cowboys 5-3, winning the last meeting 22-14 in August 2023 in this same building.
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Cowboys: Schottenheimer Confirms Minimal Starters, Howell vs. Milton the Only Real Story
Dallas arrives with a different set of priorities. The Cowboys are coming off a middling season. Now they enter 2026 with a new defensive coordinator in Christian Parker, in addition to continued questions about the unit that ranked near the bottom of the league in scoring defense a year ago. Head coach Brian Schottenheimer has already indicated that the vast majority of starters will see little to no action across the three preseason games.
The Cowboys' situation is completely different from Seattle's backup quarterback depth. Dak Prescott is the QB1 but head coach Brian Schottenheimer has already confirmed most of his starters will see "little to no action" across all three preseason games. That leaves the offense in the hands of Sam Howell and Joe Milton III, who are competing for the backup job. Schottenheimer himself called the competition "back and forth" earlier this week, which tells you neither guy has separated. A backup quarterback competition that the head coach himself describes as unresolved four days before the game is the most honest possible assessment of what Dallas's offensive production will look like across four quarters at a stadium where the noise level makes silent counts and pre-snap communication exponentially more difficult.
The first preseason matchup for the Dallas Cowboys this year will come on the road against the defending Super Bowl champions. Starters aren't expected to play, but the exhibition game will be the first chance to see Cowboys rookies like Caleb Downs and Jaishawn Barham in action. Caleb Downs and Jaishawn Barham are the two names that give Dallas something to watch — the rookie class whose live-game evaluation begins at Lumen Field on Saturday night, providing the one genuine competitive storyline the Cowboys carry into the Pacific Northwest beyond the backup quarterback audition.
Cowboys vs. Seahawks Picks
- Money Line Pick: Seattle Seahawks
Seattle has the stronger quarterback rotation for preseason purposes, with Drew Lock bringing NFL starting experience and Jalen Milroe providing a significant rushing threat. The Seahawks' home-field advantage and deeper quarterback situation make them the preferred side. The combination of a Super Bowl celebration atmosphere at Lumen Field, a defensive scheme specifically designed to exploit the pre-snap weaknesses of backup quarterbacks, and a Dallas offense split between two unproven backup signal-callers whose coach describes the competition as "back and forth" makes Seattle the cleanest home-team money-line play on Saturday's preseason slate. Take the Seahawks.
- Over/Under Pick: Under 38.5
For the total, the Under is preferred. Two coaching staffs deliberately protecting their starters, a combined backup quarterback room of Howell, Milton, Lock, and Milroe that will produce conservative play-calling across all four quarters, and the structural reality of Week 1 preseason football — where vanilla offensive schemes and defensive rotations naturally compress scoring below regular-season totals — make the Under the obvious structural play at minimal juice. The Under at -105 is essentially a free play in a preseason environment where both head coaches have publicly confirmed minimal first-team exposure and where the most celebrated team in the building will be more focused on celebrating its championship than running up a meaningless preseason score. Take the Under 38.5.
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